After spending the next day in bed, Maddy drags herself up in the afternoon. Emily is staying the night at Sophie’s. She wraps her dressing gown around her. Sarah said she ought to close his accounts or freeze them at least, sort out all his paperwork, but where is it if it’s not in the garage? She needs to find out what’s happened to her money. Did he buy into another business? She sits back on the bed. But if he did, why not tell her? She groans and throws her head back on the pillow, shutting her eyes. When she opens them, her vision rests on Max’s suitcase on top of the wardrobe. The one covered in scuff marks that he was carrying the first day he walked into the cafe.

She jumps up and drags a chair over to stand on so she can reach up and pull the suitcase down. Thankfully, it isn’t heavy. She wipes the dust off the surface with her hand. Under the light she can see it is real leather by the feathered lines of the skin. She lays it down on the carpet and kneels in front of it. When Max asked her not to open this case, she respected that. Her dad had been a very private man: she’d never have dreamed of looking through his things… until the day she had no choice.

She sits back on her heels. There are speckles of rust on the metal buckles and a cut in the leather, a flap of skin. On an intake of breath, she unclips the case and opens it a few inches. A musty smell of paint and dust wafts in her face. Without looking in she lets it drop shut. The leather balloons for a moment, as if it’s taken a breath for the first time in years. Then she flips it open in one swift move.

Both halves are lined with dark material. Stacked inside is a pile of roughly folded clothes: overalls, T-shirts, bleached jeans, all splattered with paint. There’s a book about the night sky, the moon and eclipses. Maps of various towns: Manchester, Sheffield, Norwich, Uxbridge and Huntingdon. In one corner she spots something shiny. She picks up a brass lion-crested button and turns it in the light. As she puts it in her pocket, she notices a length of thread where the lining is coming away from the leather. Slipping her fingers inside, she feels a sharp edge and takes out two envelopes. One contains a parking fine addressed to Max – she remembers now, the one issued in Huntingdon that she asked him about. The other envelope is faded, the plastic window disintegrating. Inside is a photo of a blonde girl with angular features. She’s kicking up water in a rock pool on a stony beach, jeans rolled up under her knees, her top not quite reaching her navel.